I recently had a rifle rebarreled to 280AI. I had a difficult time finding brass but I did find 2 boxes of Factory Nosler loaded ammo. I shot a box of them, uniformed the primer pockets with the Sinclair tool and deburred the flash holes.
I loaded them with IMR-4831, CCI mag primers and 175grn ABLR's, working my way up from minimum to max load according to Nosler's loading data. I saw no signs of pressure so I eased up .5 grains at a time. I never had a flattened primer, hard bolt lift, or ejector marks on the brass.
I decapped, uniformed, sized a second time and went to prime them and 4 of the first 9 I primed had very loose primers, a couple not even staying in the case.
So I am scratching my head trying to figure it out.
Is it simply a matter of too hot of a load? While I exceeded the maximum listed powder charge my velocity was not higher than listed (my barrel is 24" vs 26" for the Nosler data) and as I said, no other signs of pressure were observed.
Would using magnum primers have anything to do with it?
Anything to do with uniforming them? I have done this with my 300 win mag everytime and haven't had any issues after 3 loadings now.
Any other thoughts or words of wisdom?
Thanks,
Todd
I loaded them with IMR-4831, CCI mag primers and 175grn ABLR's, working my way up from minimum to max load according to Nosler's loading data. I saw no signs of pressure so I eased up .5 grains at a time. I never had a flattened primer, hard bolt lift, or ejector marks on the brass.
I decapped, uniformed, sized a second time and went to prime them and 4 of the first 9 I primed had very loose primers, a couple not even staying in the case.
So I am scratching my head trying to figure it out.
Is it simply a matter of too hot of a load? While I exceeded the maximum listed powder charge my velocity was not higher than listed (my barrel is 24" vs 26" for the Nosler data) and as I said, no other signs of pressure were observed.
Would using magnum primers have anything to do with it?
Anything to do with uniforming them? I have done this with my 300 win mag everytime and haven't had any issues after 3 loadings now.
Any other thoughts or words of wisdom?
Thanks,
Todd